Author Jacqueline E. Whitt argues that our military and those who direct them focus too much on winning vs. losing. As we have found in a variety of situations following World War II, outright winning may not be possible, for a variety of reasons. Examples: Vietnam, Korea, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan.
She argues that in quagmire situations, we should focus on not losing, and pretty much forget about winning. Her model is chronic disease, conditions like diabetes, asthma, AIDS, osteoporosis, maybe high blood pressure. Her argument is that we manage those conditions, being unable to cure them. Her analogy is that "not losing" is managing the situation whereas a cure would be "winning."
Literally millions live with those conditions and others less well known, for which there are no cures. We don't give up on them, we manage the conditions and the sufferers live on for decades. As she notes:
Consider the metaphor of war as illness. Would you prefer not to have the chronic condition? Sure. Do you ignore it and hope it goes away? You probably should not. Do you imagine winning and risk your health in other areas with drastic and untested treatments? Perhaps—but only after serious consultation about the potential risks and rewards.Full disclosure: I've dealt with an obscure "no known cure so we manage it" condition for 30+ years. Most of the time I've been darned glad to manage it and get on with my not bad life.
More likely, you continue to treat the problem in consultation with medical professionals. You ratchet up treatments when symptoms flare. You back off when things are in remission. You keep an eye on it. You maintain a testing regime. You stay abreast of scientific advances and new research.
In this world you might never win using such a strategy—in fact, that might not even be the point. You will probably never feel like you’re at 100%. It may be extraordinarily costly and time consuming and depressing. It may prevent you from doing other things you'd rather be doing. But you, literally, live to fight another day. Such is the nature of the beast.
Suppose we viewed managing Afghanistan in a way that it doesn't injure the United States. The place has been a mess ever since the Brits and Russians played "the Great Game" in the region 180 years ago. Are we likely to turn it into a place we can walk away from congratulating ourselves on a win, on solving its problems? Not even close, the Brits failed, the Russians failed, and we'll fail - it isn't a country, it is a collection of bloodthirsty dope-growing hill tribes.
On the other hand, if we just give up we lose and it goes back to being an incubator for terrorism. An Afghanistan left to its own devices becomes a safe haven for jihadis who aren't satisfied screwing up their own country, but 'need' to screw up ours.
What Afghanistan needs is managing, which we've done in Korea by leaving a tripwire force of troops there ever since the ceasefire in 1953. Might not some similar solution work in Afghanistan? In Iraq? In a half dozen other places where no outright win is conceivable but suppressing problems is needed.
I'll repeat what I've advocated before. If we are unwilling to expend the blood to station our own troops in these places, station a foreign legion there, leavened with U.S. officers and a few tech specialists. Like treating a chronic illness, some such will be expensive, but when the alternative is worse ....
